Daily Archives: May 8, 2011

My first online date of the month and such a positive experience. I’m going to have to try to set-up bad dates for the drama of it! The Intellectual was absolutely lovely. Kissed me on the cheek when we met, had a whole day planned of seeing exhibits from the Contact Photography Festival (including a route plan – what TTC to take and addresses of galleries), and even bought me ice cream from an ice cream truck on the side of the road (where the older Italian man selling the ice cream told him he couldn’t have the ice cream cookie that he wanted because it was messy, winked at me, and instead gave him vanilla. I, on the other hand, could have whatever I wanted!). We had some great discussions about sustainability (he runs a blog to increase discussion about sustainability), human suffering, social behaviours, unions in America in the 1970’s (brought on by a film he just watched), and silly things we used to do as children. He reminded me so much of an old friend of mine that I instantly felt at ease.

Meeting someone for the first time is always a little hard. What do you talk about? Can you reveal too much about yourself? Or too little? We seemed to fill the time quite well. He has some fascinating viewpoints on the world and I enjoyed asking him questions to get in-depth responses. It was definitely a getting-to-know each other day, and hard to tell whether there was a romantic spark or a friendship one, but I enjoyed the day and didn’t want to leave to go to work.

More about online dating, for your info…

There are many online dating sites that one can use in Toronto. Some of them you need to pay to use: eHarmony, Lavalife, match.com. Some are free (which are the ones I have used): PlentyOfFish, OkCupid. I signed up for PlentyOfFish a few months ago to try it out and do some pre-research. The reputation of PlentyOfFish is that it is used for sexual hook-ups. Although I did find some decent guys on there (one who I went on two dates with and decided he would be great for my best friend), my first experience with online dating was crazy. I kept a journal while I was starting out and here is an excerpt of how I was feeling during the time:

It’s the morning after I signed up for online dating and I already have 5 messages and 5 other people who “want to meet me” (one of which is named “let me eat that asssss”!). In all honesty, I’m not sure I’m ready for this. Maybe online dating should be a last resort, not a first. But I have to give it a fair shot. What is it with the messages that only say “hi, how are you?” or “hi how r u”? Why do I want to respond to those? Is that what people do on this thing? And my favourite message so far: “eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh hey to cold for u i am stack here what would u DO ON the first date>>>>>>>>>>” What does that even mean?!

I signed up to OkCupid at the beginning of this month and I’ve had way more success with that. The guys seem more genuine and I’ve been messaging with some really interesting people so far. I love really unique intros too. One guy sent me a recipe. Another corrected a spelling mistake in my profile (every writer needs a good editor). A few have asked about certain bands I wrote in my profile, or photography, or theatre. At first I tried to respond to everyone who sent me a message, but now that’s getting hard. It’s so time consuming, I don’t know how people do the online dating thing and still are able to work and have a life.